Instead, I slept in a little, made an enormous pot of coffee, had farmers-market fresh blueberries with my yogurt this morning, watched a few historic gems on The History Channel, made a flower arrangement and when I was sure it was going to remain sunny all day, I packed a beachy tote with all the poolside necessities and walked to my neighborhood pool which was blissfully devoid of neighbors with kids.
The appreciation for the day is never lost on me, considering what a history buff I am, and today especially so as it was my first Independence Day that I didn't have to work in about five years. I spent the day in the sun with my Kindle and then returned home, bronzed and relaxed, to make a very July 4th-appropriate dinner. Grilled chicken, salad, corn on the cob and (unsweet) iced tea. Just like the barbecues we used to have by my grandparents' pool when I was a kid, minus the deviled eggs, potato salad, baked beans and the apple pie. Oh, I miss apple pie. I'm watching my starches - the corn was a splurge. Incidentally, "unsweet" is the correct way to say you'd like your iced tea without sugar in the South. We do know that "unsweetened" is grammatically correct but lobbing off a syllable or two is what keeps us cool in the summer heat - talking too much and too fast has a cumulative negative effect on your body heat; it's not scientifically proven but it's a known fact. And you never have to specify "iced" either, we rarely take it any other way. That would be silly.
I live close enough to downtown Atlanta that I could hear the fireworks going off as I watched them on TV. So I got to enjoy the display without the crowds and traffic. Honestly, the only thing that would have made today better would be real surf and a few palm trees, but the pool and hot pink crepe myrtles that line it were just fine by me.
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